Christmas Decorating With Retro Toys

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One of the joys of Christmas is sharing traditions and memories with your loved ones. Do you remember that special toy that made the world light up when you discovered it on Christmas morning? Remember not letting it out of your sight and spending hours and hours playing with it? This year I want to share some of my favorite toys as a child with my own children. I not only wanted to give them a chance to experience and play with them, but I wanted to incorporate some of those familiar toys and sweet memories into our play room Christmas decor.

I started with this fun and whimsical slinky wreath. This is one of those easy projects you could easily complete in just a few minutes. To make your own Slinky Wreath, here is what you’ll need:

Pull one end of the slinky up and start filling it with the ornaments. I discovered that it was easier to work with the slinky and ornaments by gluing a round piece of paper to one end of the slinky so the ornaments didn’t keep spilling out.

Once you have filled up the slinky with the ornaments, bring each end of the slinky together and remove the piece of paper you glued in earlier. Then, take floral wire and carefully wrap the two ends together to secure the wreath. I wrapped a piece of ribbon around the slinky to hide the floral wire.

I decided to hang the slinky wreath from the giant chalkboard in my kids play room. Due to the nature of the slinky you’ll need to be extra careful with this next step. I laid my chalkboard on the ground and then transferred the slinky wreath to the chalkboard. Hang the wreath with a ribbon from the top of the chalkboard.

Now, here is the tricky part: once you stand up the chalk board, the slinky will stretch and pull toward the ground. To avoid this I used a small piece of Gorilla Glue Duct Tape to tape the top, bottom and each side of the slinky to the chalkboard.

I love collecting vintage toys and it’s even more fun to see my kids actually playing with and enjoying them. This year, I incorporated them along with some of the retro toys I picked out. I used an old soda crate for our white table top tree. The kids and I decorated it with colorful ornaments that matched the ones used in the slinky wreath and filled the crate with some of our favorite toys.